Building upon the current emphasis on the importance of assets in increasing the productivity and reducing the vulnerability of poor peoples' livelihoods, a conceptual framework is developed that relates the functions and attributes of poor peoples' assets to their livelihood status and...

This paper considers the relative efficiency of ad valorem and unit taxes in imperfectly competitive markets. We provide a simple proof that ad valorem taxes are welfare-superior to unit taxes in the short run when production costs are identical across firms. The proof covers differentiated...

We model firm pricing given consumers follow simple reservation price rules. Such reservation rules are rational when consumers are sufficiently impatient. The equilibrium exhibits price dispersion in pure strategies, with lower price firms earning higher profits. The range of price dispersion...

We analyze the incidence of ad valorem and unit excise taxes in an oligopolistic industry with differentiated products and price-setting (Bertrand) firms. Both taxes may be passed on to consumers by more than 100 percent, and an increase in the tax rate can increase short run firm profits (and...

"Genetic erosion in animal genetic resources (AnGR) is of concern where livelihoods of the poor are affected and option values for society are being lost. The poor often live in marginal areas and their livestock maintain adaptive characteristics. However, processes leading to genetic erosion do...

This paper considers the interaction between a firm and trade union in determining employment, wages and capital stock. We take the monopoly trade union model of Oswald (1982), where the union sets the wage, and add the firms choice of capital stock. The standard predictions of the union...